Email . . . Tricky, Really Tricky

According to a study reported in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, you've got only a 50-50 chance of correctly interpreting the tone of emails. And yet most people (90%) think they understand the tone of their emails perfectly:

"That's how flame wars get started," says psychologist Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago, who conducted the research with Justin Kruger of New York University. "People in our study were convinced they've accurately understood the tone of an e-mail message when in fact their odds are no better than chance," says Epley.

Wired News, in reporting on the research, says egocentrism makes us get it wrong:

The researchers took 30 pairs of undergraduate students and gave each one a list of 20 statements about topics like campus food or the weather. Assuming either a serious or sarcastic tone, one member of each pair e-mailed the statements to his or her partner. The partners then guessed the intended tone and indicated how confident they were in their answers.

Those who sent the messages predicted that nearly 80 percent of the time their partners would correctly interpret the tone. In fact the recipients got it right just over 50 percent of the time.

"People often think the tone or emotion in their messages is obvious because they 'hear' the tone they intend in their head as they write," Epley explains.

At the same time, those reading messages unconsciously interpret them based on their current mood, stereotypes and expectations. Despite this, the research subjects thought they accurately interpreted the messages nine out of 10 times.

You can access the full article--"Egocentrism over E-mail: Can We Communicate as Well as We Think?" (Dec 2005)--online at the journal's web site.